3 February 2022

An online debate about the possible futures for Open RAN and its effect on the market, featuring Aetha’s Amit Nagpal, now available to watch and listen to on-demand.

The Sparring Partners online event is part of a regular series hosted by wireless technologies analyst and consulting firm Senza Fili. Talk brought focus to a range of topics, from the possible futures of Open RAN, the issue of security, the role of standards and impact of integration, to what’s making operators cautious and the possibility of the cloud universe taking over the telecoms space.

The ‘Open RAN, 5G and 6G’ debate featured a panel of experts including: Amit Nagpal, Partner at Aetha Consulting and specialist in strategic and regulatory telecoms issues; Mike O’Rielly of MP O’Rielly Consulting and former FCC Commissioner; Ernest Wortham, Editor AGL & 6G World and industry analyst; and Monica Paolini, Founder and President of Senza Fili, who facilitated the lively discussion.

Conversation turned to the subject of Open RAN and the panel talked through the perceived challenges of managing security and possible changes to the market. Amit said: “One myth is that with Open RAN we will see operators buying from different suppliers, different bits of network. Operators already indirectly buy from different vendors who are buying from various providers. When you go to Ericsson, or Nokia, or Huawei for their ‘turnkey’ solution, those vendors are actually putting together equipment from other providers – so that’s already happening. Operators want to go to one party – I don’t think they want to end up buying from multiple suppliers, so it will probably be a continuation of this model but with everything badged as Open RAN.”

Amit, who has co-authored the recently-published Aetha insight article on the topic of Open RAN titled ‘Open RAN – when will it be mainstream?’, talked about Open RAN bringing competitive tension to the market. “For a lot of European countries, for example, Huawei is a major supplier to operators and, if you take Huawei away, there’s potentially a lessening of competition in that market – and perhaps some scope for price increases. Bringing this whole Open RAN dimension into this potentially provides another source of provision and keeps some competitive tension in that market. New Open RAN vendors don’t take much market share, but they probably keep the big vendors honest in terms of their pricing. And, looking to the future a little, it’s perhaps around 6G that Open RAN comes into its own.”

Discussing potential market changes – increased openness and flexibility – that Open RAN might bring, Amit said: “I’m sceptical about the idea that suddenly 80% of equipment that’s bought on radio networks is not going to come from big vendors and instead is going to come from a multitude of smaller providers. I think that’s probably taking it a bit too far.”

On integration and 5G Amit highlighted the shortfall between market vision and delivery: “One of the original visions of 5G was it would be a network of networks. So, for example, we wouldn’t have to sign up to the Wi-Fi every time we were in an indoor space and the cell phone signal was not great. This was all going to be taken care of and it was all part of the vision of 5G. This is something that the core network needs to do and it hasn’t really, at least today, delivered on any of that. Maybe 6G is where this finally does happen. Let’s see.”

Reflecting further on the evolution of generational networks, Amit said: “In terms of frequency ranges, I think we’re having enough trouble seeing how much a millimetre wave can do for mobile at the moment. Going beyond that is a lot further away. I don’t think it’s 10 years from now but tens of years until we’re going to be talking 100 gigahertz plus – apart from very low, localised applications, perhaps communicating from your handset to your virtual glasses. But in terms of a mobile network architecture, I just can’t really see those sorts of frequencies being there for a while.”

• The full Sparring Partners debate can now be seen and heard on-demand (registration required to access) at https://senzafili.com/videos/uswireless2022/

• Read ‘Open RAN – when will it be mainstream?’, an Aetha insight article by Partners, Andrew Wright and Amit Nagpal, and Consultant Callum Farrow, here.